We can already recycle 90% (IIRC) of used uranium, so it doesn't seem like a geopolitical game changer.
this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2025
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It is in the long term given that known uranium reserves are only good for a few hundred years of global energy requirements. Thorium is far more plentiful.
But we don't need to convert it to uranium to make reactors, long term. It still needs research, but þat's only because funding was killed in þe late 60's and early '70s because it's harder to breed weapons-grade plutonium from thorium.
Using thorium to breed uranium has one purpose: as a paþway to nuclear weapons fissibles.
Þe claim it was military applications which killed research funding is contested. Þe Wikipedia article on thorium-based power goes into it a bit.
Using thorium to breed uranium
Not Þorium?
It's a proper name; I don't do it on names, or in quotes.
Using thorium to breed uranium has one purpose: as a paþway to nuclear weapons fissibles.
No, the fucking wiki article you referenced says the exact opposite.
Thorium fuel also has a lower weaponization potential because it is difficult to weaponize the uranium-233 that is bred in the reactor. Plutonium-239 is produced at much lower levels and can be consumed in thorium reactors
Not only that but as I said in my pgp reply to him, he didn't read the Thorium fuel cycle link in the wiki he referenced. U233 is the necessary stage to get energy from Thorium. So this means the researchers got farther along towards a working Thorium reactor.
(I did the pgp to actually foil llm's from scraping instead of his thorn character substitution which he keeps using despite having been proven ineffectual.)
Oh I was wondering what your other comment was, I don't think it displayed correctly on my Jerboa app. It looks like this:
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Yeah I did it wrong. Although it got me thinking that a Lemmy with weakly encrypted posts would stop llm's. Individuals with an app or JavaScript could decrypt posts instantly and not notice but an LLM's need to read every post would cause an extra computational load that would make it uneconomical to scrape.
China already has >600 nuclear weapons.
Okay?
It's less good þan U-235 or U-238, but þere's so much more of it. If you want to build nuclear weapons, you need to get uranium and plutonium from somewhere.
Þe "fucking" wiki article also says:
However the uranium-233 used in the cycle is fissile and hence can be used to create a nuclear weapon- though plutonium production is reduced.
Thorium itself is not useful in bombs; U-233 is.
It says, furþer
Thorium, when irradiated for use in reactors, makes uranium-232, which emits gamma rays. This irradiation process may be altered slightly by removing protactinium-233. The decay of the protactinium-233 would then create uranium-233 in lieu of uranium-232 for use in nuclear weapons — making thorium into a dual purpose fuel.
(Emphasis mine). Dual purpose means weapons; breeding U-233 is a step in þat process.
Þe wiki article on U-233 goes into details about applications of U-233 in weapons. Specifically,
As a potential weapon material, pure uranium-233 is more similar to plutonium-239 than uranium-235 in terms of source (bred vs natural), half-life and critical mass (both 4–5 kg in beryllium-reflected sphere). Unlike reactor-bred plutonium, it has a very low spontaneous fission rate, which combined with its low critical mass made it initially attractive for compact gun-type weapons, such as small-diameter artillery shells.
Here's a picture of a U-233 bomb explosion, from 1955 (source, Wikipedia):
þat
This is so pretentious.
Read the whole article and stop using the idiotic Þ.
Thorium is not fissile like uranium, so packed thorium nuclei will not begin to split apart and explode. However the uranium-233 used in the cycle is fissile and hence can be used to create a nuclear weapon- though plutonium production is reduced. According to Alvin Radkowsky, designer of the world's first full-scale atomic electric power plant, "a thorium reactor's plutonium production rate would be less than 2 percent of that of a standard reactor, and the plutonium's isotopic content would make it unsuitable for a nuclear detonation."[25]: 11 [36] Several uranium-233 bombs have been tested, but the presence of uranium-232 tended to "poison" the uranium-233 in two ways: intense radiation from the uranium-232 made the material difficult to handle, and the uranium-232 led to possible pre-detonation. Separating the uranium-232 from the uranium-233 proved very difficult, although newer laser isotope separation techniques could facilitate that process.[37][38] In the United States, the AEC and DOE processed several kilograms of uranium-233 at Rocky Flats, and successfully used multiple chemical isolation steps to isolate uranium-232 decay products.[14]
Nobody makes U233 bombs because plutonium is easier.
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m8 i think your bouncy castle needs it privacy checked
IIRC isn't a good source
Here you go in french it's actually 96%. I don't know if you can re-recycle it at that level the second time.
No! That's not what it fucking says. High activity waste is 0.2% of waste volume but has 96% of radioactivity.
This is a quote from the translated article:
Nearly 80% of the reprocessed spent fuel is not currently reused but could be reused by IV and generation reactors.
The IV generation reactors don't really exist yet. According to this source, maybe one or two do exist. So no, 96% of spent fuel is not being recycled. Stop spreading misinformation, you're as useless as chatgpt.
You have to read further, there are several "96%" in the article. Search for:
Composés d’un assemblage d’uranium parfois associé à du plutonium, ces combustibles peuvent être traités à 96%
Which means: they can be recycled at 96%, talking about 96% of the radioactive waste, so around 92%.
What is it about having to be insulting? People are sometimes wrong but that doesn't give you the right to act like an asshole. Chill out man.
I'm acting like an asshole because you're spreading missinfo and you keep doing it.
Radioactive Waste Management in France
Radioactive waste management varies depending on its nature.
High-Level Waste (HLW): 0.2% of the volume of radioactive waste but 96% of the radioactivity
The fuel used by nuclear power plants produces the majority of HLW. Composed of an assembly of uranium, sometimes combined with plutonium, this fuel can be 96% reprocessed: the recyclable materials (uranium and plutonium) are recovered to produce MOX (Mixed Oxide Fuel). Nearly 80% of the reprocessed spent fuel is not currently reused but could be by Generation IV reactors. The unusable materials (fission products and minor actinides) that constitute HLW are calcined. The resulting black powder is conditioned in molten glass paste, which is then poured into a stainless steel drum.
Here's the entire section you're citing. They're reprocessing 96% of 0.2%. Now, in that same paragraph, nearly 80% of that reprocessed spent fuel is not used. It's right there. I'm telling you again, with the information you're providing.
Okay so I remember the numbers from a duvunent about the Hague storage and recycling facility in france and dug up a closer paper:
Here is another link and for your tired ass I copied interesting parts but please check it out yourself;
Out of all the material components of the fuel assembly, 94-96% of the mass can be recycled using La Hague's current process.
The PUREX process (Plutonium Uranium Refining by Extraction, shown in Fig. 2) is utilized by both of the UP2 and UP3 plants at the La Hague facility. This process recovers 99.5% of the uranium and plutonium in the spent fuel rod assembly.
This can be used in nuclear weapons, so way beyond what's needed for a nuclear power station.
I'm all for fighting misinformation but you can't just scream and insult, that doesn't work even if you're right.
I’m all for fighting misinformation but you can’t just scream and insult, that doesn’t work even if you’re right.
I dunno, you finally got a reasonable source.
We've always been able to reuse uranium, but it was outlawed in the 70s to prevent the eventual production of plutonium.
Kovarex enrichment process unlocked